After the debate which started on Tuesday and continued on Wednesday, 82 parliamentarians voted in favor of ousting Prime Minister Rajoy, while 170 were against the move and 97 members of the parliament abstained from the vote. One parliamentarian did not participate in voting. The vote of no confidence needs to be passed by the overall majority of the house corresponding to 176 parliamentarians from 350.
The vote to ouster the government of the ruling People's Party (PP) was initiated by opposition Unidos Podemos (United We Can) leftist alliance, including Podemos and United Left parties, which proposed Podemos leader Pablo Manuel Iglesias Turrion as a candidate for the position of the president of the Spanish government instead of Rajoy.
The alliance considers the numerous court trials around the PP officials as the reason for the ouster. Apart from that, the government's failure to regulate the issue related to striving of Spain's autonomous region of Catalonia to separate from Madrid through the independence referendum, is also regarded by the opposition as a reason for the government's ouster.
"The Spanish citizens do not deserve to have breakfast amid another news on corruption," Iglesias pointed out.
The Podemos leader also criticized the government's failure to establish dialogue with the Catalan authorities and grant Catalonia the possibility to independently determine the fate of their region at the referendum.
Rajoy, in turn, called the leftist party initiative as a "stage play."
"It is not an attempt to overthrow the government, it is just a play. Since the first day, when you announced the initiative, it was clear that it would fail," Rajoy said addressing the opposition group.
Major Spain's opposition force Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the Citizens party announced that they would not support the vote of no confidence before it took place.
Previously, the Spanish parliament tried to pass the vote of no confidence in 1980 and 1987, failing both times.
Thousands of the Spanish supported passing the vote of no confidence in Rajoy and the PP in a major rally in the country's capital of Madrid in May.
Rajoy's governance has been overshadowed by a number of corruption scandals including the landmark Gurtel case launched in October 2016, after nine years of investigations. Under the case, 37 PP members were accused of involvement in a corruption network by giving public contracts worth over 350 million euros ($382 million) after having received bribes. Some of the involved PP members, including the party's treasurer, testified that the PP leadership was aware of the scheme.
Rajoy is expected to testify as a witness in a court in Gurtel trial on July 26.
